From: "L-Soft list server at Indiana University (1.8d)" To: "ARTF@MemoryAlpha.nil" File: "LOISCLA-GENERAL-L LOG9802A" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 00:02:39 -0600 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Stefanie Slifer Subject: Re: What Do We Do When We're Not in CyberSpace? Okay, I'll jump in, too. >This brings up an interesting question... What kinds of occupations are >represented by the fanfic writers, readers and lurkers? Personally, I'm a student and babysitter. However, I'm 16, so I could probably get a job; I'd love to work in a bookstore (stemming, of course, from the fact that I love to read and have tried my hand at fiction writing). >Personally, I think there is a stereotype out there that implies that people who >read/write/want to write anything romantic or showing love or warmth between two >people are sappy, foolish, bubbleheaded human beings. We're not?! Oh, sorry. (Actually I prefer the term "romantically inclined" ) >So... what do we do when we're not in CyberSpace? Like I said, I'm a student. . .a sophomore in HS. I homeschool (and no, I'm not the stereotypical naive, sheltered, dummy who hasn't learned anything). I babysit (in fact, I just got back from a job at 11pm and by 11:30 I was at the computer ) for two families who live on an Air Force Base near us. I basically spend my days doing school, sewing, doing small crafts, running errands with my mom and/or my granny, watching L&C whenever I can, Wed. nights I go to church, as well as Sundays, and I'm involved in the youth choir as a soprano and librarian/officer. >And further, how does that affect our writing/reading habits? I love Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys books (although I'm growing out of them, I still collect them and plan on passing them on to my children) and read those every so often. I get stuck with a lot of school related reading (can we say 20 *long* chapters of Biology? Oh, and five book reports *every year*, along with my other 10 textbook subjects!) I love fanfic and read it off of the computer whenever I can spare the time, however I did print one fic out to read on the bus to a retreat. I've had very little time to read anything, really, although I used to read every night before going to sleep. So, a pretty basic, boring life. Hey, you asked, I told . Bye, y'all! Hugs, Stefanie =) cute6@juno.com LL: Was that supposed to be sarcasm? CK: What? That wasn't clear enough? "Operation Blackout" _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 00:18:19 -0600 Reply-To: ginachar@horizon.hit.net Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: GINA AND CHARLIE JONES Subject: Re: What do we do when we're not in CyberSpace MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hiya! Okay......I'll join in as well. :) Just to make things clear....I am NOT a teacher too!!! I am a warrants clerk (i.e. secretary/notary public/coffee maker/file filer/phone answerer/letter typer/public greeter/big sister/little sister/mother/daughter/advise giver) at the local sheriff's department. When I am not working, I am usually on the computer, reading fanfic (l&c and others), watching TV, doing housework, or just being with my family. I am married (2 years) with two great step-sons (9 and 7) and a great dog named Biscuit. I live in a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone and I am finding out that I don't mind it as much as I used to. My husband, Charlie is great and has never said a bad thing to me about the amount of time I spend reading the list and chatting on IRC. I have been on the list for a few months now and have only spoken up a few times. Hopefully that will change in the future. You all are a great bunch of FoLC! If you want to find out more about me and my family, check out our website at www.geocities.com/hollywood/studio/5968. Until next time............ Gina Jones (loisrae on IRC) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 01:39:01 -0500 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Nethra Ankam Subject: Re: Kathy's Challenge In-Reply-To: <199802010506.AAA17652@r02n06.cac.psu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >And to keep this going, and perhaps get into the punchlines bit >(yes, I know, no spoilers), a lot of stories have a bit of poetry >at the end -- which one ends with a Bible verse? > >Peace I know! Aliens and Strangers by Susan Stone. I love that story!! Nethra ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 00:52:45 -0600 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Melissa Day Hall Subject: Re: Kathy's Challenge MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > And to keep this going, and perhaps get into the punchlines bit > (yes, I know, no spoilers), a lot of stories have a bit of poetry > at the end -- which one ends with a Bible verse? Oh- I should know this- I JUST read it- about an hour ago. Aliens and Strangers by Susan Stone Misha ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 01:13:19 PST Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Peace Everett Subject: Re: Kathy's Challenge In-Reply-To: <199802010041.RAA25380@polaris.azstarnet.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I challenged: >And to keep this going, and perhaps get into the punchlines bit >(yes, I know, no spoilers), a lot of stories have a bit of poetry >at the end -- which one ends with a Bible verse? Sarah replied: >In the Beginning, by BB Medos (aka Bev) Nethra replied: >I know! Aliens and Strangers by Susan Stone. I love that story!! and now I'm thinking... hmmm.... more here than I realized -- no, I actually wasn't thinking of either of these. So maybe I should narrow my challenge (although it is very interesting to see what *other* stories end with Bible verses) -- the story I'm thinking of ended with a Commandment. Peace ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 12:42:28 +0100 Reply-To: heinemann@s-direktnet.de Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Andreas Heinemann Subject: Round Robin: Hey Baby [04] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Round Robin: Hey Baby particpating authors so far - feel free to join Brad at The Gardner Family [0] Gary [1] Andreas [2,4] Doris [3] Round Robin: Hey Baby [4] Andreas --- Ping P'hong robbin' 'round --- Fear. Impending unavoidable doom lingered in a dark alley of suicide slum which in contrast enjoyed a beautyful sunrise. The prey hiding behind some trash cans was very well aware of the danger, it's senses running on overload, desperately trying to scan the area for its arch enemy. Distant noises could be heard, still far away but coming nearer every second. "The predator is closing in", the scared little soul realized. A cat strolled around in the alley, searching for its breakfast. "There's a fresh trail here", she mused, inspecting the dumpsters and the trash littered around. However she had to jump quickly and run for her very own life as a door opened to reveal a man whom literally no one could have mistaken for an animal lover. "Rats ! I do not deserve such a treatment. I am a highly qualified henchman, an artist in my field of expertise", Ping P'hong fumed, exiting one of those long ago deserted storehouses which are usually abused as evil overlord's interim residences. "To retrieve a piece of paper ! Ridiculous ! My talent wasted for nothing. Anyone could complete such an easy 'mission' ", he rumbled. Empty bottles of beer had to endure the outrage of his anger as he kicked them across the street along with some of the trash littering the sidewalk. The cat meanwhile raised its head and sniffed. "Definitely a fresh trail -" she purred, carefully stepping around, searching for clues. As she passed a huge trash can the odor of a rich banquet hit her nouse, "- to a meal indeed. No its just find the way and then - lunchtime", she thought to herself already licking her lips in anticipation while trying to tear the darkness of the far edge apart with her eyes. "Now, where to go", P'hong mused, looking around trying to locate his position, never having used that particular exit before. The Prey's heart stopped beating as it looked directly into the predator's glowing eyes. Though yet still hidden in the dark saftey of the shadows of the dumpsters, it knew that discovery was just a heart beat away. "No it seems to be my time to meet my fate", the brave soul realized, still desperately trying to hold its breath without suffocating. Then one of the bottles decided that it had crossed its point of ascention and that it was now time to return to the familar ground of earth. Unfortunately beeing a lifeless item doesn't leave much choice of way of life, so the destination was entirely destined by the almighty laws of physics, this time tailored by destiny to safe a life in danger. Indeed 'ground zero' was a cat's tail. "Me-auch, auch", the poor cat whined, forgetting about her breakfast, running away once more. "Huhhh, that was pretty close," the little mouse exhaled relieved, its small body still trembling for the still lingering fear and desperation it had felt in the bottom of its tiny, hart beating heart just moments before. "I just hope that i will be able to return to the mouse house, my master would not be pleased to listen to a delayed report, and he needs to know what his puppet is up to instantly." --- A rather strange man entered the daily planet, dressed as a room maintenance specialist, the propper equipment handy. "Oh, i'm here for Rehalia. She has got the flu, poor girl", he told everyone crossing his way wondering what he was doing with all whose papers he was collecting and tossing into the bag he carried with him. He entered the newsroom and looked around, scanning the area. A beautyful young girl bumped into a handsome man in his late twenties, apologizing gently for the inconvenience. "Sorry she said", P'hong mumbled, "as if that would be appropriate !" He went to the conference room, determined to clean it up definitly thorough. Closing the door he heard the voice of the marvellous woman in a beautiful dress which had been standing right next to the young man saying "Did that woman ... ". But the closing door cut off the conversation and he didn't really care, reminding himself "After all i'm here to get some litter, not to pry into the private conversation of a young couple in love. That look she had lingering on him, and he in return adored her, paying any attention to every move she made. That would warm my heart. That is if i ever had one." - Later in the morning the biggest boyscout in town roamed the sky mile high following a certain silver jeep cherokee, which was lining up for the left turn at the next crossing. "Oh, no, " he groaned, "that won't take her to police headquarters. I knew it. Can't she ever do what is expected of her ? Just once ?" Superman followed the trail of his true love as he heard a desperate scream for help. "... he's dying ! The crane collapsed and burried him. Where are the fire fighters ? We need an ambulance ! ..." "Business as usual", Superman thought to himself, already accelerating to super speed to respond to the call for duty, his trail streaking a rainbow's marvellous colors into the sky. Moments later a blurr of red and blue crushed into a parking car, sending it spinning into the air. The 'faster than a speeding bullet' trademarked projectile by which it had been wrecked continued on its course and smashed right into the remains of the crane, steel moaned under the impact of pure power seeking its way to the buried victim. Then scary silence. Not even an inaudiable whisper. The audience waited, worried both for the fate of the victim and the hero coming to his rescue. But nothing could be heared or seen but the still smoldering path of destruction which had lead the heroe's descention. - Ping P'hong scanned his prey, a pile of litter, indeed no clues. The sheet of paper he had been sent for was gone. "Excellent, he thought to himself, "now that i have searched the planet and came up with nothing but useless sheets and notes leaves me with the opportunity to literally go round robbing each and every paper in town. And i won't be finished until tomorrow, i don't think Carver is going to like that. What the heck, he won't see the Sun rising in the Mirror anyway." - Lois parked her car in front of a huge building, and remained in the drivers seat for just a few more seconds to collect her thoughts. "That's it", she exhaled, "I'd better got to go now." She left the car and turned right. "Miss Lane, your arrival has been awaited", she was greeted as she entered the building. - The people at the construction site standing around the collapsed crane in the working area cheered up - as the fire fighters arrived at the site of destruction. "What happened", their captain queried the foreman who replied: "The crane collapsed and buried one of my men, then Supe' arrived and dove into the earth. Actually he didn't deaccelerate, he rather crushed into the scene, ya'know, albatros style landing ~~\_X__o__.___> " waving his hand to show off the entire mess. "Excellent, " the captain of the fire fighters thought to himself, "now we have most likely two victims to be rescued. However i know Superman. He won't just run into the scene without ...", his thoughts trailed off as his men awaited his orders. "Solve the task at hand first", he reminded himself. - "... in suicide slum ?" Lois asked Inspector Henderson. "Yes, however we have not yet been able to locate the exact position of the evil acronym's hideaway." Henderson agreed, "However there are rumors that this dark deity has been taken over by some other evil overlord to whom it has to report now. But the NIA had our investigation canceled. So i guess they have something of their own running, maybe even an international cooperation. But you know the intelligences, most likely the whole operation is so secret that even no one alive of their own men would be allowed to know about. Whatever. So we came up with the idea that you could contact Superman. Maybe he would be willing to scan the area for some clues within this area", he concluded, showing her a two block square within the most dangerous part of town. After the conversation with Inspector Henderson Lois went back to her car. She retrieved her cell phone on the way and dialed Clarks number. But nobody answered her call. - P'hong returned to the storehouse, carrying a rolled carpet with him, which twisted and tilted around in a rather suspisciously manner. "Why fizzle around with details, searching for small pieces of paper carrying tiny bits of information if you can get ahold of the entire prey." he muttered. - Meanwhile the fire fighters had been able to disassemble the crane blocking their access to the buried victims as the ambulances arrived. Suddenly the captain stopped his men. "Quiet, all hands be quiet !", he barked. And much to anyones surprise, a distant noise could be heared. Superman's voice requesting medical attention, which made the crowd cheer up and the medics run. - "Listen to me !" Sheena exclaimed, "I don't have anything you could want ! So now release me or Brad the mighty will come for my rescue ! I assure you that he has more resources to get you busted than you could think of !" she threatened her kidnapper who just laughed at her. - Lois opened the door of her car as she heared a cell phone beeping for attention. She opened her bag and retrieved her handy, but it was still trying to phone Clark while the sounds continued. Puzzled she searched for the origin of the noise and came up with another cell phone. "Oh, Clark." she muttered, "Just for the records. I have tried to contact you." as she buried the tiny second phone in a hidden pocket of her dress. - "Superman", the emergency doctor said, "it was an excellent idea to retrieve a medical emergency kit from a nearby car to get the resources to apply first aid procedures to the buried victim. I don't think that he would have been able to survive if you had not stopped that bleeding in time. But now he will be fine." "Well, i have learned a lot about medical emergency procedures in that course of yours. " Superman agreed, "I have even suggested that every member of the Justice League and their sidekicks should attend your classes." Looking around he realized that the devasted working area was at the junction of Fences avenue / Luther boulevard. "That was the reason for Lois turning left at that crossing", he realized, her direct way from the daily planet to police headquarters blocked. "I should have trusted her", he thought feeling guilty for watching after her, "but she truly has that habit of hers doing the unexpected." - "So what should i do know ?", Lois asked herself after updating Perry at the planet. "Let's play it safe." After a brief moment she shook her head, "Ah No, lets fire up that old spitfire of mine and see that i can come up with. That's just a stakeout, nothing dangerous. I will be just watching. No danger." --- One part of the top ace investigating reporter team of the daily planet dodged in combat style from behind a dumpster across the street into the next cover, all senses alert covering the way in front of her. "That's the old storehouse Bobby Bigmouth was talking about a month ago", Lois recognized the rather old and battered building which was just waiting for destruction - no doubt. "That can be helped," she muttered under her breath, "my darling has that habit of cleaning up the mob when it comes to dealing with evil cult members and followers of abbreviated darkness. I'd be surprised if that building is still upright and waterproofed when we are finished with that acronym and its henchmen." She managed to get into the building without alerting anyone, she even had her handy logged out and turned off, such that no enventual call would be able to blow her cover. "No need to fall for the same mistake twice", she remembered, "strange coincidence with citizen Kane and Carver that is." A starving cat strolled around, no doubt about her need for a meal left with her stomach snarling loud like a dog just before the lethal bite. "Oh please," Lois pledged, "just keep away from me. Maybe i should give you some occupation", she thought and sacrificed her sandwich in the far away corner for the cat to eat. "That should keep her away from me, " Lois hoped, making herself comfortable in the ideal spot to look through a hole in the base of the cellar into some kind of cavern which seemed to extend for some blocks under the ground. "Just like a throne room", she muttered under her breath. --- Ping P'hong 'the retaliator' entered a humid, scarsly lit cave, guards lined up to the left and right of the entry. "Reporting to the superiors is often more dangerous than the mission itself - however my mission was no complete failure, " he reminded himself, "skipping town would have been most likely much more dangerous." he tried to calm down himself, approaching the throne room in a suspiciously shaky course desperately trying to avoid the both of the drap doors in the floor he knew of. Fortunately, some other creature had to deliver it's report first, so P'hong was allowed to enjoy the safety of the throne room's outback for just a few more seconds. A quite handsome man strolled to the bar, taking a seat just next to him. The stranger returned P'hongs greeting look into his eyes with a self-confident nod. The barkeepers request for orders was answered with "Martini, 2 olives, shaken - not stirred." "Oh no, don't go for the cliche' ", Ping P'hong groaned inwardly. The inhabitant of the throne listened carefully to the report of is henchman, his hands resting on the sides of the chair, his fingers tenderly caressing the rich ornament of the throne. "... so the annual meeting of the brotherhood of arch enemies was not entirely unsuccessful." the creature tried to explain the course of the events which had taken place. "In fact most of the present evil overlords had met their fate on the hands of their corrosponding foes and fellow members even before your highness APC were ..." The eyes of the deity sitting on the large, not quite uncomfortable chair began to roll, dangerously flashing. Burning anger contracted the fist of the evil overlords right hand so hard that everyone could hear the throne's wood mourning in pain, eventually pressing the ornament of the seat on a very sensual part. In fact this made the floor under the doomed creature vanish and thus sealed the poor souls fate, it's life canceled by the almighty overpower just like so many promising entities which had been dumped before by the treason of this evil acronym. "There's a reason why i settled for 'my master', 'your highness' and 'my lord'. Did they stop to teach the basic rules of survival at the academy for evil henchmen ? The number one is never mispronounce your overlord's name and title. Few take such failure lightly", P'hong thought to himself and instantly memmorized the place of the recently added trapdoor, instantly obeying rule number twelve. --- "Ha .. Ha .... Tschew !", Lois snoozed, annoyed by the reaction of her body, her position given away if there had been anyone paying attention. "I hate cats. I am allergic to all flavours of them. Can't they just purr off and leave me alone, hiding in a stakeout of their own ? Do they have to join me each and every time i am seeking a little privacy ? " "Shhh, Lois", a female voice whispered behind her. "A cat murmuring my name ?", Lois thought to herself, slowly turning round. "Cat !" her whisper exclaimed, "Cat Grant ?" --- NEXT --- special thanks to: Clarks landing inspired by demona Heaven's Prisoners (you had me ROTF with whose 3 keystrokes !) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:36:48 +0000 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Genine E Murray Subject: Re: What do we do when we're not in CyberSpace Hey FoLCs, Okay, I may as well join in on this! :) It's been really interesting reading some of these posts about what FoLCs do in their "reality-based-non-L&C-related life"! When I'm not in cyberspace (which occurs much too often I might add , its so much nicer than the "real world"), I spend my time doing a number of things. I am a full time college student, and this is my second semester at Niagara County Community College. I am currently majoring in Liberal Arts, but am planning to switch that major over to Animal Management. I just turned 18... I'm a year ahead of myself as far as school goes... I should just be graduating high school this June. I am also on a full-tuition paid scholarship, so that luckily takes off *some* of the load! :) I have a part-time job at CVS pharmacy, where I have been working for about a year-and-a-half now... minimum wage is the worst BTW! Unfortunately I only make enough money to pay my car insurance and buy gas, and the occassional "goodie" (the blooper tape was my most recent expenditure!!) I work about an average of 10-20 hours a week *away* from home. If anyone wants to see animals, come to my house! I live on a working farm. We have 21 acres of land in what my older sister likes to call "hicktown" (or "Nowheresville"!! ). In our barn alone we have (currently) 4 horses, 1 of which is my own whom I have had for 6 years, 3 goats, 6 pigs, 7 cats, 100 chickens, and 3 cows. In our house we have 3 dogs... oh... and 10 fish! :) A real wide assortment to say the least. And boy is it a *lot* of work. I only live by myself with my mother and stepdad (who both think my L&C obsession is reason to put me in a mental facility BTW... ), so I am the only one that they can pick on to help with all the chores! In my "off-time", AKA Sundays, I spend my day doing the one thing I love (besides doing FoLC things of course!). I have been volunteering at the Aquarium of Niagara (Falls that is), since May of '97, and I love it! I work with everything from sea lions, seals, penguins, otters, sharks, and even the 2 visiting dolphins we have currently. In fact, just last week I got to play with and feed the dolphins, it was a great experience! My other hobbies include reading and posting to the list(s), reading L&C fanfic (and I am currently trying to finish writing my first fanfic), chatting on IRC, watching L&C on TNT, planning Dean's birthday gift, horsebackriding, studying (definitely not one of my faves!), spending time with friends, etc... the list goes on. But I have made this post long enough. In fact, if you have managed to make it through this far, thanks for reading! :) Take care everyone! Genine ~ GemFoLC51@juno.com ~ SuperGeM on mIRC Watch "Lois & Clark : The New Adventures of Superman" on TNT "Generation after generation, we are all blinded by love, Ms. Lane. Especially that one great love that changes us forever." H.G. Wells - Tempus Fugitive _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:50:25 EST Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Becky Lewis Subject: Re: LOISCLA-GENERAL-L Digest - 30 Jan 1998 to 31 Jan 199 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-01-31 00:45:13 EST, you write: << >This brings up an interesting question... What kinds of occupations are >represented by the fanfic writers, readers and lurkers? I've heard a few >> Uh-oh, it's that what do you do question, the one I usually answer "Technical writer," because most people at least think they know what that means, and if I say "Document Production Supervisor," they say: What on earth is that? So, what on earth is that: I take things other people have written and try to make them sound like English, I take plain-looking documents and change the font and the layout and try to make them beautiful, I do Power Point presentations for people who are afraid of their computers, and....oh never mind, I'm a technical writer . When I'm not doing that, I love to read anything I can get my hands on (although fanfic is my favorite and has certainly cut down on my bookstore bills.). I try to write fanfic and think I may soon finish my second story ever–I've lost count of how many I've started. I also like to garden, go to flea markets with my husband (another gem of a man who likes to shop!), and occasionally play a round of golf with him. (We have a deal: he puts up with my L&C obsession, and I put up with the fact the he plays golf more than occasionally ). I've really enjoyed reading the messages in this thread, and I'd like to add my thanks, too, to all the terrific writers out there who've done so much to keep me entertained! Becky blewispar3@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:53:30 EST Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Becky Lewis Subject: Previous post should have been Re: What do we do when we're not in Cyberspace? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sorry, I saw the subject line as my post went away...You can definitely tell I'm basically a lurker and not used to actually posting! Becky blewispar3@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:56:47 EST Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: No Name Available Subject: Re: What Do We Do When We're Not in CyberSpace? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > >This brings up an interesting question... What kinds of occupations are > >represented by the fanfic writers, readers and lurkers? I'm a student (a freshman), and at 14 my parents still pay for everything so I don't work. I'm in Beta Club, Girl Scouts, and taking honors classes, so I don't have much free time. That time which I do have I spend online (I'm addicted, I'll admit it :) I love to read fanfic, but I haven't tried to write any yet. I live with my parents, a younger brother and a mutt named Buster. Basically, a busy and yet boring life :) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 12:53:59 -0500 Reply-To: Kassia@concentric.net Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Tanya Subject: Re: What Do We Do When We're Not in CyberSpace? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This brings up an interesting question... What kinds of occupations are represented by the fanfic writers, readers and lurkers? Hello all.....this seemed like another good excuse to post. I live in Toronto and maintain a semi-professional career in music and theatre....usually together (Les Miserables, here I come!) I am also a student looking forward to stresses of theatre training. I do some volunteer work, as well. I was Editor-in-Chief (but they called me Lois, not Perry....hmmmmm) and reporter for my high school paper, so I would like to take the opportunity to volunteer my services of editorial work, should any assistance be required, of course. I enjoy writing tremendously. As for reading: I enjoy fanfic, although I've read more "Remington Steele" fic than LnC. I will rectify that A.S.A.P.! I've written fanfic (PG and otherwise) but haven't gotten around to sending it yet (Zoom can back me up on this one) :) My favourite book is "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving....my highest recommendations. Take care FoLCs!! Tanya "EmmyRose" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:53:04 -0500 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Michelle Glenn Subject: Re: What Do We Do When We're Not in CyberSpace? In-Reply-To: <34D4B6B7.7B36@concentric.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Let's see, my parents would probably want to know when I am not in Cyber Space!! :> I am a junior at Towson University so I spend the majority of my time with my nose stuck in a book. I am studying to be a pre-school/early elementary school teacher. Right now, a lot of my time is spent looking around for stuff to put in my portfolio. When I'm not doing school-related stuff I am reading (I know you're thinking why oh why would you want to read more when you spend the majority of your time reading already. Well, the truth is I *love* it. I really do read a lot, but I also write. In between doing homework, and getting my portfolio started I am in the middle of writing two stories. In fact, one is actually my first attempt at a fanfic. It may take awhile to finish though, so don't hold your breath. I also listen to music, go country line dancing and write to pen-pals. Since my best friend has a 4-year-old niece and one on the way and I teach Sunday School as well as having three "adopted" little sisters aged 4, 6, and 7, I spend a lot of time with children. I adore children and always seem to end up with the kiddies at any function. I guess it helps when your friends love children too, I can hang out with my friends and work with kids at the same time. I have *very* long breaks in between my classes, so I do spend a lot of time on the computer. We're talking 9 non-consecutive hours of free time a day. Guess that's what happens when you start taking classes that only have one section offered at night, as well as taking a dreaded Biology course that is only offered during the day. I think I've covered everything, well I also tend to watch my Lois and Clark tapes a lot and I am the clerk at my church. Now that I've bored you to death, TTFN, Michelle ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 14:19:14 -0500 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Margaret Brignell Subject: Re: What Do We Do When We're Not in CyberSpace? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Okay, I'll add my "life" to the list responding to: >This brings up an interesting question... What kinds of occupations are >represented by the fanfic writers, readers and lurkers? I'm a systems librarian at a police college. (I am also responsible for such things as cataloguing and collection maintenance. On the whole I like the computer part of the job best:) I got into fanfic because I was kicked out of my office for a month due to renovations during the summer of 1995 Okay, okay, I know that needs a bit of explaining;) I was moving from desk to desk, as people went off on vacation, while they were doing some kind of structural work to the college that involved ripping a wall out of my office. (I've since lost the office...but that's a whole other story) Late one afternoon I was so fed up with being "homeless" I opened up the word processor and started typing the words "Clark was jog-trotting behind his father across the meadow, trying to keep up." I could see the whole scene in my mind and wanted to write it down...an explanation as to why Clark was wearing glasses when he arrived in Metropolis. I copied what I had written to a floppy and took it home to round out the story. Then I wrote to Debby S. begging and pleading with her to review what I had written Amazingly enough, she did:D And, with a lot of prompting from her, my first fanfic "The Rules" was created:) The rest, as they say, is history My other interests are travel (as a result "my" Clark travels a lot) and reading (I do not remember a time in my life when I couldn't read. I can remember not being able to write, but it seems like I've *always* been able to read:) I'll read virtually anything, but what I enjoy most is mystery and science fiction...and travel books I also read a *lot* of fanfic (almost all of it L&C related). My husband is kind enough to support my L&C habit (our last three vacations revolved around L&C in one way or another); but, so far, he hasn't shown enough interest to actually read any of my fanfic;\ On the other hand he did visit my web site and described it as "really neat" That just about summarizes my non-cyber life:) TTYL Margaret ****************************** Margaret Brignell brignell@capitalnet.com Ottawa, Canada %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% My fanfic now available at: http://www.capitalnet.com/~brignell/ ****************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 14:50:05 -0500 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Donna Lehman <102262.2435@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Re: What Do We Do When We're Not in CyberSpace? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hi All, I'm afraid I have been a Lurker here. I have really enjoyed reading all t= he posts and I love LNC Fanfic even though I don't write any. I thought I would jump in on this thread because it is very interesting. First of all, I am probably older than the average FOLC. I am a grandmoth= er and work for a printing company. I do not operate a press! The company is= small so I do a lot of different jobs. My main position is setting up forms, brochures, product inserts, etc. on the computer and get them read= y to print. I also go to church and sing in the choir. I have really enjoyed all my LNC tapes and am wearing them out. Donna ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 07:45:43 +1100 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Jenny Stosser Subject: Learning to Read (was:Re: What Do We Do When We're Not in CyberSpace?) In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980201141824.006ac64c@capitalnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:19 PM 01/02/98 -0500, Margaret Brignell wrote: >My other interests are travel (as a result "my" Clark travels a lot) and >reading (I do not remember a time in my life when I couldn't read. I can >remember not being able to write, but it seems like I've *always* been able >to read:) I'll read virtually anything, but what I enjoy most is mystery >From a new school-parent's point of view I found this fascinating. I have a little anecdote to tell about David, who at 5 1/2 started school last Thursday. When he was about 2 1/2, we started buying for him books based on Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a TV show made in the UK (I believe it airs in the US under the name Shining Time Station. Some of the episodes are narrated by Ringo Starr.) Each book is perhaps 20 pages, mostly made up of pictures, with the words which follow the narration from the TV show. When we first started reading the books to David, he used to insist that we read every printed word to him, including the part at the front that says "read all about your friends in books such as ..." and goes on to list other books in the series, such as Rupert the Bear, Babar, James Bond Junior etc. By the time Megan was born, when David was 3, he knew some of the books verbatim, which is why we called her FatFace at the beginning (she had chubby cheeks, and Gordon the Big Blue Engine called someone else FatFace in one of David's favourite stories). The other day, I was reading one of the books to David for his bedtime story, and I skipped over the bit before the story began, but David asked me to read it to him. I offered to let him have a go, but because he is beginning to learn to read, he was totally baffled by the words... They weren't words he recognised, so he gave up on them. It was fascinating as a parent seeing how he has gone from reciting verbatim to not knowing how to read the same words. I'm looking forward to his being able to read the words one day soon! -- Jenny Stosser -*- jenerate@ozramp.net.au -*- (Jenerator or MoiAussie on IRC) This message is umop ap!sdn -*- David is 5 and Megan is 2! Photos on the Stosser Family HomePage: http://geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/4583 Please sign our guestbook! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 16:09:01 -0500 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Melissa A. Jehnings" Subject: Re: What Do We Do When We're Not in CyberSpace? In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980201024431.00707850@copper.ucs.indiana.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >This brings up an interesting question... What kinds of occupations are >represented by the fanfic writers, readers and lurkers? I've heard a Hiya FoLCs, Figured I'd come out of hiding and answer this one as well, since just about everyone else is! I'm a crisis counselor in the emergency department of my local hospital. I see the psychiatric and substance abuse emergencies that come in after they've seen a doctor to figure out what the best game plan is for them. I also do a little bit of grief counseling, when necessary. Outside of work, I teach friends and collegues at the hospital how to use their computers, and I'm an avid BBSer. [For those of you who don't know, BBS stands for Bulletin Board System...they were quite popular a number of years back, but are slowly dying down]. I've been on the net for about 10 years now, starting when I was in college. I've just dipped my feet into the waters of fanfic...finishing my first story, which is currently in editing [it's nfic...for some reason, it practically wrote itself] and working on my first whole A-plot fanfic, which is taking longer than I anticipated. I've been reading fanfic since late November, and can't get enough! I also found IRC about 3 weeks ago, much to my boyfriend's dismay. That's the whole scoop on me for now... Melissa A. Jehnings melissa@tiac.net Shadowcat5@aol.com --- Shadowcat on IRC ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:39:46 -0800 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Leanne Shawler Subject: S5 episode Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ok, So I'm a little early today -- but I have the in-laws coming for an early dinner, so I won't be able to post it at the normal time! I'm sure Alyssa will have the online version (complete with pics and sound) up at the usual time later this afternoon (which is sometime after 3pm PST, I believe. I'm sure you'll love Jeff's offering this week! Enjoy! Leanne Leanne Shawler aka Volterra on IRC (volterra@sd.znet.com) http://www.znet.com/~volterra/leanne.html Lois and Clark Season 5 Fanfic: http://www.tempus.simplenet.com/season5/ ********************************************************** Midnight Dreaming: The Original Anthony Warlow Home Page: http://www.zweb.com/volterra/anthony.html ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:38:11 -0800 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Leanne Shawler (by way of Leanne Shawler)" Subject: S5: Episode 11 (part 1 of 7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" OH GIVE ME A HOME by Jeff Brogden (jwbrogden@bigfoot.com) edited by Diane Levitan { The Kent farm, Smallville, Kansas, early evening the Sunday before Christmas } They had only been at the farm for a short time, but already Lois was starting to relax. They had gotten in later than they had wanted, but Lois was glad to finally be here. Lois finished unpacking her clothes, then zipped up the suitcase and put it in the closet. She turned around to give everything a once over and spotted Clark's bag. It was only half unpacked. He had gone off to look for some wrapping paper so they could wrap the last of the Christmas gifts. Shopping had been next to impossible this year. 'We sure needed this break,' Lois thought. The recent activities with the anti-Superman society, on top of the pregnancy, had started to take its toll later in the week. They had planned on coming to the farm for the weekend only. Martha and Jonathan were first on the list of people to tell their good news. As the week progressed, and her energy levels decreased, Clark had talked her into taking the whole week of Christmas off. Perry wasn't too thrilled, but they were both due a break and they had the vacation time. All the way here, Clark had teased her that his mom would turn her into a country girl with all the free time they would have. "Wonder where he is?" she wondered out loud. She found him in the living room, arranging the little figurines of a nativity set. She walked up behind him, annd wrapped her arms around his waist, and gave him a hug. "What are you doing?" "Oh, just putting everything in the right spot," Clark motioned vaguely around the nativity scene. "This nativity scene is pretty old," he said, putting down a wise man close to the corner of the manger, "it's been in the family for ages." Lois stepped over next to him to examine the set. It was fairly big, with a large number of figures. Each figure was painted in fine detail, and they had a hand-crafted look about them. The stable and manger were made from real wood, and looked like perfect miniatures of the real thing. The scene was set up on the top of an antique buffet, and took up the whole surface. Someone had put down a layer of thin cotton batting and sprinkled it with some sort of iridescent material to give the appearance of snow. Clark was positioning a cow with the precision of a mechanical engineer, seemingly oblivious to her presence. "Wasn't this set up before we got here? I seem to remember seeing it out of the corner of my eye as we walked through earlier." "Yeah, it was here." He set down a dog a few inches from the front door of the stable. "But it was set up wrong." He delicately rearranged a few more of the figures, as Lois looked on in amusement. "Is that a camel?" "Yeah..." "Is this," Lois fingered the cotton batting, "supposed to be snow?" "Yeah..." "Snow and camels?" Clark looked at her, then looked at the nativity scene. "Well..." he stalled. Lois looked at him, waiting for him to go on. "...it *is* Christmas," he stated as if that explained it all. "Clark..." "It's *always* been this way, as long as I can remember." She patted him on the back. "When you're done playing with the nativity scene, you need to finish unpacking and we need to wrap the rest of our gifts." She leaned in close and dropped her voice to a whisper, "We also need to talk about you-know-what, and when we are going to tell you-know-who before we slip up." There was a blur of motion and a slight breeze then Clark announced "Done." He put his arm around her shoulder and steered her towards their room. "I think we should tell them right away." He scooped up the wrapping paper he had left lying on the couch as they walked by. Lois could hear the excitement in his voice. They had talked about waiting until Christmas Day, but neither of them thought they could keep the pregnancy quiet until then. Add to that the fact that Lois was starting to feel a little run down all the time, and it wouldn't take Martha long to figure out what was going on. "Okay, let's tell them tonight after supper. Your mom said something about icing some cut-out cookies?" "Yeah, that would be a good time." Clark picked up some clothes and put them in the dresser. Lois took out a roll of wrapping paper and unrolled enough to cover one of the packages. "Is there a lot of skill required to ice cut-out cookies?" she asked with a slight grin. Clark smiled. "Even you can ice a cut-out cookie Lois. It's like painting with icing. Traditionally, each person picks his or her favorite color." "Your family has a lot of traditions, I've noticed. Especially around the holidays." Clark wrapped her up in his arms and gave her a soft, light kiss. "Our family will have a lot of traditions too." He kissed her again. "Hmmmm... I hope so. I want our family to build strong ties and good relationships." "It will - as long as we do things together." *** Jonathan was starting the Christmas music in the other room as Martha and Lois were getting the cookies set out in little stacks organized by shape. Clark was mixing some powdered-sugar icing in various bowls, each containing a different color. "It's so good to have you two home for a holiday. I was really looking forward to Thanksgiving. When you two couldn't be here, I was so disappointed," Martha said. "My parents can do that to people," Lois quipped. Jonathan came back into the kitchen. "Oh, they were no trouble. We had a lot of fun actually. We just missed seeing the two of you." "Yes. Even when we come to Metropolis, you two always seem to have something going, or places to go, or things to hear." The last comment was directed in Clark's direction. "Out here, there's no interruptions, no emergencies, no stories." Jonathan smiled. "Just family. And a chance to relax. You two need to do more of that." Clark sighed. "It's just so hard to pull yourself away sometimes. I feel like I might miss something." "Before we start down this gloomy path, bring the icing over and let's get started," Martha said, pulling out a chair for Clark to sit in. "Now - pick out your favorite color and start smearing." Lois reached over and grabbed the brown icing. "I'll do the brown stuff." "Brown?" Jonathan and Martha said in unison. "Is there a problem with brown?" "A lot of your clothes used to be brown, didn't they, honey?" "Before we start down *that* gloomy path, Clark and I want to tell you about the latest project we've been working on." Lois smiled at Clark, inviting him to tell his parents the news of the baby. Before Clark could speak, Martha grabbed the chair next to Jonathan and said, "We have some news to share with you two as well. We're both just so excited." Jonathan reached out and grabbed her hand. "Yes - we've been busting at the seams to tell you. Mind if we go first?" Clark saw the expectant look on their faces and hated to make them wait. "Okay," he sighed, "you first." Jonathan seemed to gather his strength, as if he were nervous. "Your mother and I have decided to retire. We are going to sell the farm, and all our possessions, buy a travel trailer and tour America." Stunned silence greeted them. Martha broke the quiet. "Of course, we'll come to Metropolis first." She looked on hopefully. ***** Obviously, they were expecting a much happier response than the one they were getting. Lois didn't know what to say, it had happened so fast and come out of nowhere. Clark sat back in his chair with a slump. "You're going to sell the home place?" Martha and Jonathan nodded. "And all your stuff?" They nodded again. "Why?" "Well, your mother and I are not getting any younger. We are both in good health, and want to do something while we can." "We've seen so many people work and slave their whole lives, and then die or get sick shortly after they retire," Martha explained. "We figured, why not retire a little early and enjoy life a little," Jonathan said, spreading open his hands as if to show them something. "What about money? Do you have enough to last for as long as you might need?" Clark asked. "With the good harvest we've had the past few seasons and the smart farming techniques your father has been implementing all these years, we think we have enough to last." Martha picked up a cookie star and started smearing yellow icing on it. Jonathan picked up a Santa-shaped cookie and the red icing bowl. "Plus the sale of the land should bring a bundle. I'm not sure how much the house and barn will bring. The contents of the house might bring in some good money. Your mother has acquired a good collection of antiques here." "We probably will keep some things. The ones with sentimental value." "We've always talked about traveling. When you started traveling all over the world, sending us those letters and articles from all over, it got us wanting to do some traveling of our own one day." "We were a bit jealous," Martha laughed. Clark finally picked up a snowman. "This money has got to last you the rest of your lives. Now days, that can be a very long time." Jonathan laughed. "I hope so!" Lois spoke up for the first time. "This is so sudden, how long have you been considering this?" "Well, we had a pretty good idea at Thanksgiving time that we wanted to do something like this. We were just not sure. Then Grant caught wind of our plans one day and said he would be interested in buying the place." Martha picked up another star. "Who?" Lois didn't recognize the name. Jonathan put another Santa on the done pile. "Grant, Grant Hall. He's our hired hand. I don't think you've met him yet." "So your hired hand helped you decide to go through with this plan? He's going to buy the farm?" Something about this wasn't right, but Lois wasn't sure she could trust her feelings right now. Right now, emotions in the room were a bit strong. "You're going to sell the house to the hired hand?" Clark asked a little too loudly. His snowman started to crumble. "Clark, honey, if you aren't going to ice the snowman, or eat it, put it down before you crumble it into non-existence," Martha said. "He doesn't want the house, he has a really nice one of his own. He bought the old McKibben place. Done a *wonderful* job of fixing it up too." She started on her fifth star. "He's just interested in the land." "What would he do with it?" Clark was starting to sound like he was whining. Lois decided she would have to say something if he kept it up. "Farm it, I assumed," Jonathan said gruffly. He sighed, then continued. "Look, Clark, he's a good farmer, a hard worker, and frankly I've given up hope that you might still be convinced to be a farmer someday. He's got a young family and a good sense for the business. If he wants it, and can buy it, he can have it." "I'm... I'm sorry Dad, Mom. This is just so sudden. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that you could give up this place. You've spent most of your lives getting to where you are now. I'm just... amazed you would want to get rid of it all." "We did just kind of drop the bomb on you." Martha reached across the table and patted his hand. "We'll talk more about it in the morning. Maybe we can go to town and see Grant and his family." *** Grant Hall entered his living room, took one look at his wife, Nicole, and knew that today had not been a good day. She was sitting there on the couch, looking like she had been put through the ringer. Their son, Joshua, was singing the same verse of his favorite song, over and over. He walked over and patted Joshua on the head. "Hey, sport." "Daddy!" He jumped up and grabbed him around the leg. "Why don't you take my lunch pail into the kitchen for me?" Joshua took the lunch pail and ran for the kitchen. Grant leaned down and kissed Nicole on the forehead, as he put his hand on her enlarged stomach. "Hello, sweetheart. Rough day?" "Oh, you have no idea." She brushed a stray hair from her face. "That one," she pointed toward the kitchen, "won't quit singing that song to this one." She patted her stomach. "And this one had literally beat me to death from the inside out today. Baby must be doing gymnastics in there." Grant put his head close to Nicole's stomach, and said loudly, "Hey Baby, Daddy is home. How you doing? You need something to play with in there?" He was rewarded with a feisty kick or punch. "Oh!" Alarmed, Grant asked, "Did that hurt? Sorry, honey." "No, no. Just surprised me." Grant sat down next to Nicole on the couch. "Are we still going shopping tomorrow?" Nicole sighed. "Yes. I'm just glad Martha said she would watch Joshua. I don't think I could take it if he was coming with us. He has *so* much energy, and I'm always so tired." "Don't worry hon, It's only six more weeks." "Easy for you to say, you haven't put on thirty-five extra pounds to lug around." She leaned forward, and Grant automatically started massaging her back. "Thank goodness for Martha and Jonathan. They have been a godsend." "Amen. I finally feel like we are starting to build a home here." They sat in silence for a minute, while Grant massaged her back. "Do you think we will be able to stay here?" "I hope so." "It's going to be hard. Once Martha and Jonathan's son comes home for a while." "Hon, let's try to be positive. Okay?" Joshua came running in with a bunch of rags. "Here Dad, help me get my costume on. I'm going to be a shepherd in the church play." "That's great, Josh! Do you have your lines memorized?" "Well - I don't say anything. I just move a bunch of fake sheep around and look at baby Jesus." "How about moving your body into the bathroom for a bath." "Awww, Dad...." *** Clark lay in bed, wide awake while the rest of the house slept. In his arms, Lois was making those cute little noises she always made when he held her close as they slept. He couldn't quit thinking of what his parents had told them. He had been so shocked and hurt that he had forgotten all about the news Lois and he had for them. Evidently, his parents had forgotten about it as well, since they had never asked. Funny, Lois didn't mention it again either. She was probably as shocked as he was. He lay there listening to every sound there was, as if it was the last time he would hear it in his life. He looked through the ceiling at the stars overhead, and wondered where Krypton was. Or had been. That home was taken from him, and now he was about to lose the only other home he had known. A feeling of restlessness began to overcome him. He felt like getting out and doing a little flying. It had always helped clear his head. However, he hated to run off on Lois. He was afraid he would wake her, and he didn't want to explain things to her. He wanted time to think. The restlessness continued to grow, until Clark thought he would go mad if he didn't get up and move around. He slid out of bed as gently as he could and padded downstairs. Without knowing why, he turned on the television. Jonathan had been watching LNN before he had gone to bed, so the set came up on that channel. As the picture began to gain shape, the sound came in clearly. Now Clark knew why he had felt so uneasy before. There was a crisis in Iraq. One of the "presidential facilities" the UN inspectors had been barred from looking at had suddenly erupted into flames, spewing a deadly gas of chemicals into the air and surrounding areas. The world needed a superman, and with a spin and a whoosh, it had one. *** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:38:21 -0800 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Leanne Shawler (by way of Leanne Shawler)" Subject: S5: Episode 11 (part 2 of 7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lois woke at the familiar sound. She felt for Clark, and noticed he was missing. She got up and started to walk, but sat down quickly. "I thought they called this morning sickness..." she mumbled. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was 2:30a.m. "Oh, guess it is morning." She found the television still on in the living room. It only took a second to comprehend what had happened and where Clark was headed. "Be careful," she whispered into the night. *** The next morning came too soon, and Lois found herself still alone in bed. The shot of adrenaline woke her quickly as she scanned the room for signs of Clark. In the corner, lying on a sheet of plastic, was the Suit. She sighed a breath of relief, knowing he had made it home. She flopped back onto the pillow, "I'm just so tired. I'll sleep just a little longer." A knock at the door caused her to jump again. "Lois? Are you all right?" Martha's muffled voice filtered in. "I'm fine, come on in." Martha opened the door, and stepped in. "Are you sure you feel fine? It's nine-thirty, I was getting a little worried." "Nine-thirty!?" Lois sat up straight in bed. She put her head in her hands as the blood in her head tried to keep up with her violent motions. "I'm fine - really. Guess I didn't sleep well, worrying about Clark last night." Martha sat down on the foot of the bed. "I saw the news this morning. Just horrible what they are doing over there with those chemicals." "Over here, too. Clark and I can't prove it, but we were tracking down some chemical warfare leads here in the U.S." Martha sighed. "Come on. I've got some bagels downstairs, and I can make you some coffee, hot tea or cocoa." *** Lois ate while Martha talked of all the things they needed to do today. Clark and Jonathan had gone to do some chores around the farm, so Lois and Martha were going to go into town to buy some last minute things. "I wish Clark would have woken me to let me know he was all right," Lois said, popping a small bite of bagel in her mouth. She hadn't gotten sick yet, thankfully. Her energy levels were at an all-time low, however. She hoped she didn't look like she felt -- horrible. "I mentioned something about it to him, but he said you would need the rest." Martha turned to look at Lois. "Wonder what he meant by that?" Lois could feel her eyes widen as she struggled to swallow the last bite of bagel she had in her mouth. Before she could formulate a response, she heard a car pull up the gravel driveway and stop outside the back door. "Expecting company?" Martha walked over to the window. "No... not that I remem... Oh my gosh! I forgot. I forgot I told Nicole I'd watch Joshua today. With all that happened last night..." Her voice trailed off as she rushed to open the door. "Ms. Martha! Ms. Martha!" A little boy, about six years old, came rushing in through the door just as Martha opened it. "I'm coming to stay with you while Mom and Dad go shopping!" "Hello Joshua! Yes, I know. I asked them if I could spend the day with you. Shopping can get boring sometimes." "Yeah, especially when Mom drags Dad past," he took a deep breath before continuing, "past all the... every single... clothes stand in the whole..." another breath, "...whole dog-gone mall." A very beautiful, very *pregnant* woman came in. "Slow down, Joshua, take a breath. Hi, Martha, you sure you don't mind..." The woman's whole posture changed the second she spotted Lois. Before, she appeared open, and friendly. Now, Lois could almost see her close in on herself. She reached out and grabbed Joshua's shoulder and pulled him a little closer. "I'm... I'm sorry, Martha, I didn't know you were going to have company. I wouldn't have bothered you. Come on, Joshua, we'll let Ms. Martha get back to her guest." She was already starting out the door before Martha could speak. "Oh, no, don't worry. Nicole, this is Lois Lane, my daughter-in-law. Lois, this is Nicole Hall, and her son, Joshua." Martha steered them both back into the kitchen. "Nicole is Grant's wife. We were hoping to see you today, we don't mind watching Joshua, really. You're not bothering us at all." Martha gave a small pleading look at Lois. "No, no problem at all. We'd love to watch Joshua. Don't let me change your plans." Lois put on the best smile she could considering how she felt and looked. She directed her attention to the little boy. "Hello, Joshua. How are you?" The little boy was shy at first. "I'm fine." He turned to his mother. "Mamma, she's pretty." Everyone laughed. "My, and such a charmer too. Bet you have all the girls chasing you." He turned a little more red and just smiled. "Mom, I want to stay with Ms. Martha and Ms. Lois. We gots lots to do, right?" "Yes, we sure do," Martha agreed. Nicole looked nervously back and forth between Lois and Martha. "Well..." "Ms. Martha! I'm going to be in the church play. I'm a shepherd." The little boy beamed at her like it was his greatest achievement. "That's wonderful. When is the play?" "Ummm... I think it's soon." "Wednesday, dear," Nicole supplied. "Yeah, Wednesday. You going to come?" "Well, I believe that might be possible. Can I bring Jonathan, Clark and Lois as well?" The little boy looked at Lois again. "Sure." He smiled at her, and she couldn't help smiling back. "Martha, I can't let you watch Joshua while..." Martha cut her off short. "Now I don't want to hear anymore about it. We can watch him, it's no problem. Now, you better get going." She started steering her toward the door. "I'll come out to the car and get his things." Lois sat there looking at Joshua who was looking at Lois. "Well, how old are you?" "I just turned six not too long ago." "Wow, six years old. You're getting to be pretty big." "Yep. I'm in school, you know." Lois nodded her head, and bit back a giggle. Children could be so cute sometimes. "And I know my whole name and address too." He took up a pose as if he was trying to remember it just right. "Joshua Cr... Craig Hall," he said quickly. "And I live at Route 2," he paused, looking at the ceiling, "Box 44, Smallville, Kansas." Lois was still stuck on the name slip-up. 'Cr... Craig...' The little investigative reporter functions of her brain started filing facts automatically for her. Like the fact that Nicole Hall was in a near panic when she first saw Lois, and the fact that she wasn't willing at first to leave Joshua with them. "Where do you live?" Joshua's question brought her back to the present. "Oh, I live in Metropolis, New Troy." "Don'cha know your address?" "Well, yes, I do. It's..." "Mom and Dad used to live in Metropolis," the little boy interrupted her. "I never did though. I heard it was *big*!" 'Hall... Metropolis... around six or seven years ago...' The facts kept building up. Lois couldn't put her finger on the source of nagging feeling she was feeling, but she was sure she would figure it out. Some puzzle needed solving and she would be the one to solve it. Martha came back in. "Lois, why don't you go take a shower and get ready. Joshua and I will finish up in here, and then we can go to town." "We're not going shopping, are we?" Joshua whined. Martha smiled. "Nope. We're going treasure hunting." "Wow!" "Yes, Jonathan gave me a list of treasure items to find for him today. It's our job to get as many of them as we can before he gets back." Martha clapped her hands together to emphasize the importance of their task. "He doesn't think we can do it, but I know with your help, we can." Joshua got a determined look on his face. "Oh, we'll do it all right, just to show Mr. Jonathan." He pounded his fist into his open hand. "I'll hurry then - so we won't waste any time," Lois shouted as she rushed to the bathroom. 'I'll have to start a file on how to motivate kids like Martha does as well.' *** Grant watched as Nicole came flying down the road and into their driveway. "Wow, are we in a hurry or what..." he mumbled as he opened the garage door for her. No sooner had the car came to a stop, than she was running up to meet him. "Grant, Lois Lane is at the Kent's house." The news was like a hammer between the eyes. It wasn't totally unexpected, but it was still a shock. Grant sighed loudly. "We knew this might happen after we found out she was married to Martha and Jonathan's son. I don't know what we can do about it." They went inside the house and Nicole hugged Grant as best she could with her stomach in the way. "I'm just so scared she will recognize me." Grant rubbed her shoulders and back. "We have to think positive about this. It's been, what, almost seven years? That's a long time." "Is it long enough? She's an investigative reporter - one of the best. Anything could set her off. Joshua is getting better at remembering things, but he's not perfect yet." "He'll do fine." "I don't want to leave again, Grant. Not from here. This is home now." Grant held her closer. He was scared too, but didn't want her to know. "We better get going. We want to look as normal as possible. We'll be okay." *** Jonathan and Clark had been going about the chores around the farm in relative silence. They had done this together so many times in the past, neither really needed to say anything to the other. They both knew what needed to be done, and how best to do it. Without talking, they split the chores evenly and efficiently. However, normally they *did* talk. The fact that they could work so well together just gave them *more* opportunities to talk. Only today they were not talking. Jonathan pulled the truck up to the gate, and Clark jumped out to open it up. He could hear the cows mooing as they came running to greet them. They had been conditioned over the years to come running when they showed up because that meant fresh hay, salt blocks and water. Jonathan pulled into the pasture and Clark shut the gate, then jumped up into the bed of the truck and started breaking down a bale of hay. The cows gathered around the tailgate, shuffling for position, as Clark started tossing the broken chunks over the side. Jonathan continued to drive slowly towards the watering area as Clark broke down the hay bales and distributed them to the animals. Once there, Jonathan got out and took the salt blocks Clark was handing down to him. He set them up, then checked the water tank to see if it had frozen or needed filling. Clark was already in the truck when Jonathan climbed in. "Okay, out with it," Jonathan said, turning to Clark. Clark jumped as if poked by a cattle prod. "Huh?" "Are you going to sit there all quiet all day, or are you going to talk to me about what's eating you?" Clark really didn't feel like talking about it. "It's nothing, really..." "Bull! Clark, I've known you longer than just about everyone. I know when there's something." Jonathan softened just a little, letting the concern in his voice strengthen. "Talk to me, Clark." Clark sighed. "It's just this retirement thing. It's so... sudden. So unlike you. I'm just trying to grasp it, examine it, figure out what the heck you're doing and why..." "What we're doing is retiring. Why, is because we want to enjoy life. There's more to life than this farm," Jonathan waved his hand at the windshield, "you know that. You got your opportunity to see what else is out there. Now your Mother and I want to do the same." It was true, he had gotten his chance to see the world. There was more to life than the farm. Still... "I guess I feel..." Clark paused, not sure if he should say anything. "I feel like I'm having my home taken from me. Like Krypton was, only worse. I actually *know* this place. It's been my haven for so long. To think that it might not be here - it scares me." Jonathan sat back in his seat and let out a low whistle. "I'm sorry, Dad, I... I shouldn't have said anything." "No, no. It's all right. I want you to feel like you can tell me anything. That's important for a good relationship." He sat there for a minute, then said, "Clark, I can't promise we will change our minds about this. But we should have talked it over more with you first. You're as much a part of this place as we are, I just didn't realize it. I'm sorry." Clark shook his head. "You don't have to be sorry. I'm sorry for acting like this, for putting this guilt trip on you now." Jonathan smiled. "Don't worry. We have a ways to go yet. I want to get one more harvest in before I do anything." He looked out over the expanse of pasture before them. "The thought of getting out there both excites and scares me. I may need some help from an ol' hand in the business." He glanced sideways at Clark. "I happen to know someone who has done some extensive traveling in the United States, as well as the world who might be persuaded to give you some pointers." Clark smiled. "Thanks." Jonathan put the truck in gear. "Change is always scary. Guess that's why that group in Metropolis got started up. Scared of the changes Superman has brought to the world." Clark could almost make himself understand that, if he hadn't been the object of discussion. "I'm glad you can talk honestly and openly with me, Clark. Makes me feel good. Like I did a good job in raising you." Clark laughed. "Oh, I think you did an excellent job. I just hope I can be as good at it as you someday." "It's a scary thing, being a parent. To think that you hold the key to another person's life in your hands. What you do and say every day will affect how that person grows up, what they think, what they believe. You're responsible for shaping that person into a positive influence on society, and not a detriment - it's almost more than a person wants to think about." Clark sat there for a moment, the enormity of what his father had just said sinking in. 'Oh boy! What have Lois and I gotten ourselves into now!' *** Martha, Lois and Joshua made their way around town smoothly. They took a leisurely pace, of which Lois was glad of. As they went from shop to shop, Martha would introduce Lois to whomever they met. Everyone was so excited to meet a real live celebrity, and they all made a fuss while she was around. For her part, she took the attention and admiration in stride, trying not to let it go to her head, while at the same time making sure no one made too big of a production of things. One thing she found out, and took some small advantage of, was that everyone was overly willing to talk. As Martha and Joshua went down the aisle looking for their "treasures", Lois would chat with the clerks, managers and town folk at the front of the store. At least they thought of it as chatting - in reality, it was a cleverly disguised interview and fact finding mission. She wanted more information on the Hall family, especially Grant Hall. She and Clark knew surprisingly little about the hired hand that Martha and Jonathan had employed recently. For some reason, it never bothered her much before. Now that they had announced their retirement, something about Mr. Hall's involvement in the matter didn't sit well with her. She couldn't put her finger on it yet, but she had learned to go with her initial gut reaction. More times than not, it had paid off. Everyone she met was more than generous with information as well. "He's such a nice man. Goes out of his way to help." "They came into town one day, out of the blue." "Was driving a pretty fancy vehicle. A 'sport utility vehicle' I think they call it." "Bought the old McKibben place. Heard they paid cash." "Been sitting there for years, but he fixed it up real nice. Must have spent a fortune." "Oh yes, he's a strong one. Hands as big as a bears, and strong too. Seen him once pull on a tow-rope and nearly jerk the rear bumper off a car." "I was playing darts with him one day down at the barber shop, and he hit 5 bulls-eyes. He can sure throw them darts." "Heck of a farm hand. Could probably make a fortune if he got his own place. Doesn't seem to need it though. Always got plenty of cash on him. Pays for everything with cash." "Don't talk much about family. I don't think they have any. Your in-laws have kind of adopted them. They act like grandparents sometimes with that little Joshua." "Poor Nicole, she's a bit confused by this pregnancy sometimes. Called her husband Mark one time." "They just can't wait to have that baby. Nicole's a real beauty, and her pregnancy has just enhanced it. I think she's got another month or more to go." "She's got that natural beauty about her. Coulda been a model somewhere else." "I wish I would have looked that good when I was pregnant." The information flowed faster than she could mentally catalog it. It amazed her how open they where. She'd always heard about small town gossip, and it certainly looked like it was true. About mid-afternoon, Lois suddenly felt sick. Not the morning-sickness kind of sick, just a weak all over kind of sick. "Martha, I need to sit down. I'm suddenly not feeling well." ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:38:33 -0800 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Leanne Shawler (by way of Leanne Shawler)" Subject: S5: Episode 11 (part 3 of 7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "What's wrong, Lois?" "I'm not sure, I almost feel hungry, and weak. It happened so suddenly." Martha looked at her closely. Lois was starting to feel like she might figure out that she was pregnant just by looking at her. It felt like the words "I'm pregnant!" were stamped on her forehead. "I think your sugar levels have dropped too low. Do you usually snack during the day?" "Not unless you count Double Fudge Crunch Bars," Lois said sarcastically. "Well, your system is probably used to that influx of sugar, and we haven't stopped to get anything to eat since lunch." Joshua came up just then to announce, "I'm hungry too. Let's get a snack." "Okay, we'll go to the Tasty Treat." "Yeah!" "Lois, you need to watch what you eat. If this sugar drop is a common thing, you need to get checked out for diabetes." Lois couldn't imagine that she had a blood-sugar problem. However, after she ate something, she did start feeling better. Joshua was starting to look sleepy, and Lois realized she was getting tired as well. "Martha, how close are we to being done? Someone is getting s-l-e-e-p-y." She pointed at the little boy. He was just sitting there in his chair, eyes half closed and not making a sound for the first time all day. Martha looked over at him and smiled. "I think we can call it a day. He won't last till we get to the end of Main Street before he's out." Lois helped Martha gather their things, and get everything packed into the car. Putting Joshua in the car seat they had borrowed from his Mother was an adventure. He was basically 50+ pounds of dead weight that the two of them had to get into position and strapped in. "Wow! When kids go to sleep, they go to sleep! He's completely dead to the world!" Lois said. "I know - Clark used to just go and go and go. Then, he would fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I remember one time he fell asleep at the supper table. Now that was tired. Clark *never* missed a meal." "He fell asleep eating?" Lois couldn't believe it. *** When they got back to the farm house, they could see that Jonathan and Clark had beaten them home. After Lois helped lug Joshua into the house, she asked about Clark. "He's outside somewhere. We came home, fixed a snack, and I took a nap," Jonathan said. "I heard him go out the back door, but I'm not sure where he is." "I'll go find him," Lois said as she wrapped her coat around her again. Clark was sitting in the Fortress of Solitude with the globe. He was just sitting there, staring at the setting sun. He was encased in sunlight, and he appeared to glow, the aura around his body giving off an almost visible shimmer. Lois came walking up under the tree house and shouted, "Hey up there, want company?" "Sure, come on up," Clark replied sullenly. "How about some help?" Clark frowned down at her. "World famous investigative reporter can't climb up into a tree house? Lois, I've seen you nearly scale the outside of a building for a story." "True. However, I've been walking all over Smallville with your Mother and a six year old the whole day. Quite frankly, I'm too exhausted to climb a tree right now." Clark put the globe down and dropped down next to her. "Six year old?" Lois wrapped her arms around him and gave him a long, slow kiss. "Hmmmm..." "That was because I'm so glad to see you." She gave his nose a tweak with her fingers. "And that is for not letting me see you all day and not letting me know you got back last night all right." "Sorry. You seemed so tired, I hated to wake you." Clark gave her a hug and a kiss. "What's this about a six year old?" Clark floated them up to the tree house, back into the sunlight. "Yes, Joshua Hall. The hired hand's son." "Ah." "Your mother had volunteered to watch him while they did some last minute shopping." They sat there, looking out over the landscape for a moment. Lois looked at Clark, and realized there was something bothering him. He just sat there in the sunlight, staring off to the west, not saying anything. Lois looked to the west and could see that the sun was heading towards the horizon, the clouds in the sky reflecting light in various shades of pinks, purples, yellows, oranges and blues. The wind had blown the clouds into lots of little whips and whirls, reflecting the sun in intricate patterns. "Looks like it will be a beautiful sunset." Clark grunted an affirmative. "I rarely get to see it like this. Here, everything is so clear, and open. You don't realize how much pollution Metropolis has, or how crowded the horizon is with buildings, until you come out here." "There is nothing quite like a sunset - except maybe a sunrise." >From their vantage point up in the tree, Lois could see for miles. The drab, stark winter landscape was broken up by vibrant green fields. The sunlight enhanced the color of the fields against the browns and greys of their surroundings. The field was speckled with the brown, black and white colors of the cattle that were grazing on it. They were spread out over a large area, and Lois estimated there to be over a hundred cattle in the field. "Why are those fields so green when everything else is so brown or greyish?" "That's a winter wheat field. It's harvested in June or July. It grows real fast at first, in the winter, to store up moisture and energy." He paused, then added, "The green is like a promise of the bounty it will deliver in the spring and summer." Lois arched an eyebrow at that. Clark was being a bit dramatic. "We're not that far up, and yet I feel as if I can see for miles. How far can a person see out here?" "Oh, about fifteen to twenty miles on a good, clear day. Far enough to see the grain elevators of several towns." Clark pointed out in several different directions. "See? You can see the tops of them poking above the horizon over there, there, and there. That one is Smallville." Lois could see the tops of a tall, white structure where Clark had pointed. "Amazing. How far can you see with your," she reached up to her face and made a finger gesture, "vision gizmo?" "I'm not sure, I've never really tried to check it. One obstacle is the curvature of the Earth. It limits my visibility like anyone else." "You could use the X-ray thing to see through the ground though, right?" "Well..." "Take a look back east and tell me if I turned the coffee pot off back home. It's been bugging me all day." Clark shook his head. "I don't think I really want to..." "Okay, okay, how about to China?" "China?" Lois leaned over the side of the Fortress and looked straight down. "Yeah, look through to China, or whatever is on the other side." Clark looked less than enthusiastic. "Lois... I don't..." "Come on - just take a peek. What could it hurt?" Clark shrugged and leaned over and started peeling back the layers of rock below them with his "vision gizmo." The further he went the greater the headache he suddenly developed got. Suddenly, Lois reached over and touched his arm. "Hold on a second. I just remembered something." Clark pushed his glasses back. "What?" Lois clutched her stomach. "The baby. I read somewhere that X-rays can be really bad for a baby at this stage of development." Clark shook his head. "I don't think that applies here." Lois sat up a little straighter. "Why not? They don't call it X-ray vision for nothing?" "Yeah, but..." "Have you ever had it tested? Has Dr. Klein seen if there is any kind of radiation output when you do that?" "No, but..." Lois went on. "Then I think you should limit its use. If we don't know much about your X-ray vision, it could be hurting the baby." Lois saw him shrink in on himself a little bit more. "Oh darn," she said. "Now what?" "It's just that I came up here to cheer you up and all I've done is upset you." Clark smiled. "I'm not upset, really. I was just thinking that you may be right. What if I'm using a - skill - of mine that could be hurting people?" "Just go see Dr. Klein. He can tell you. Until then - limit your use of it." They were silent again while Clark stared at the sunset. Lois couldn't take it any longer. "Kiss for your thoughts?" Clark smiled at her. "It's nothing." "Clark..." Lois challenged. "Well - it's this whole move thing. This is home. Krypton was taken from me, and now this place will be as well. I just don't know what to do. Mom and Dad are so looking forward to this." Lois turned Clark's face to look at hers. "Clark, I'm not going to beat around the bush. You're going to have to let it go. It may hurt to hear it, but it's time to move on. You and I and this baby are getting ready to start a home of our very own. It's time for you to realize that home is where you make it." Clark nodded. "I want so very much to build a home - our home. I want my kids to feel as good about our home as I did about this one." "Great. Now, what else is there?" "Nothi..." "Clark..." He smiled. "Well - do you realize just what we may have gotten ourselves into with this family thing?" "What do you mean?" "Like the responsibilities, the time pressures, the raising them to be good people and productive members of society. Is my running off going to adversely affect them? Is your knack for dangling above the jaws of death going to hinder the positive developmental process?" "I'm sure we can spend time with them and teach them the very best," Lois assured him. "That's just it. Time. We barely have enough for each other as it is now. Where is the extra time a baby is going to need going to come from? As we've discussed before, we won't be able to just jump on the Superman Express and fly all over the wold. There will always be little ones to worry about. To give them the time they need, we will have to cut into the time we have for each other." Now it was Lois' turn to be quiet and watch the sunset. The sun was a huge, orange ball just hovering above the horizon. Clark broke the silence. "When I was young, I used to watch every sunset I could. It made me *feel* special. I didn't know about the solar power, or the aura at that time. But I could tell I felt different in the sunlight than I did at other times. I used to feel that they were orchestrated just for me. Some sort of special gift that I had to find out how to use. "When I got older, and the powers started manifesting, I knew it was a sign that I was to do something special with them. I just didn't know what. I spent a lot of time looking at sunrises and sunsets trying to figure out what to do. I've seen them from all over the world, but none are like the ones at home, here on the range." Lois couldn't resist the opening. "Home on the range? Where the deer and the antelope play?" Clark smiled. "Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word." "And the skies are not cloudy all day," Lois finished. After a moment's pause, Clark said, "Everything will be all right. I'm sure of it. Just as I was sure that those rays of light the sun gives off as it sets were just for me." Lois looked at the sunset again. The clouds were partially covering the sun, and there where shafts of sunlight where it was escaping through a hole in the cloud. "I used to think those shafts of light were a trail for me to follow. I could feel the sun drive its power to my very soul when I was in one of those shafts. I once chased a sunset all the way around the world, just to get close to them." Lois laughed. "You're kidding..." "Nope." He laughed. "Nearly scared Mom and Dad to death when I didn't come home for a whole day. It wasn't long after that, that I decided to travel. I felt like there was something for me out there. Guess that's what Mom and Dad are feeling now." Lois grabbed Clark's hands, and held them in hers. "Clark, we are going to build the most wonderful home together." The magic of the moment seized them, and they fell together in a passionate embrace. The world consisted of the two of them and the promise of their future together. "I thought you were exhausted..." Clark asked between kisses. "The sun energized me," Lois replied then proceeded to demonstrate for him. *** The next morning, Lois woke up just in time to make a mad dash to the bathroom. She was tired and sick and sick of being tired and sick. The feeling tired wasn't as bad as the feeling of being sick. It wasn't happening a lot now, but it was too much for her taste. "Speaking of taste... bleah..." Lois grabbed the mouthwash and gargled for a while. She came out of the bathroom, and found Clark still in bed, asleep. She looked at the clock and was shocked to see it read nine fifty in the morning. Oh my. Martha and Jonathan were going to suspect something was up for sure now. She tried to wake Clark up, but nothing she tried seemed to even faze him in the least. She pulled the sheets down to reveal his muscular chest and stomach. She traced a finger down his breast bone toward his navel, admiring the landscape as she proceeded. She tried to tickle his belly-button, but that didn't work. She toyed with the little hairs there, and started to follow their trail lower to the waistband of his sleeping shorts. 'Mmmmm... don't go there, girl. You're not feeling good enough to finish what you could start by playing around in there...' she thought to herself as she slipped her index finger just under the waistband and ran it back and forth. She pulled the band up about two inches (and was darned tempted to take a peek, but resisted mightily) and let them go, sending a resounding "Snap!" through the quiet of the room. No response. 'Wow!' Lois did a quick review of what Clark had done the past few days. He'd been pretty stressed already before coming here, had the retirement bomb dropped on him, had the Iraqi disaster to take care of, miscellaneous small patrols of Metropolis at odd hours to keep the crooks in line while they were gone, the pressure of being a father suddenly brought to the foreground, and an extensive treehouse workout the night before. Guess the poor boy did have a reason to be tired after all. The stress was probably just taking its toll. The quiet solitude of the farm did tend to help her relax and recharge. Clark was probably no different, thus his reluctance to accept the fact that it might not be here for him soon. Lois decided to go downstairs and grab something to eat. Something small and... neutral. Hopefully, she could stall Martha and Jonathan long enough for Clark to wake up and they could tell them together. *** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:38:42 -0800 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Leanne Shawler (by way of Leanne Shawler)" Subject: S5: Episode 11 (part 4 of 7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lois didn't have anything to worry about as Martha had left a note for them saying that Jonathan and she would be back around 11:00am. She fixed herself some herbal tea and some toast and sat down at the computer to do some email work. Martha had shown her how to access their Internet Service Provider, and telnet over to the Daily Planet's host. She started to compose a letter for Jimmy to do some research, when she notice a message from the network gurus down in the netcave. They had installed some new internet phone software. Lois downloaded the plug-in to the Kent's computer and looked for Jimmy's "number." After a couple of rings, a voice vaguely recognizable as Jimmy's came over the speakers. "Hello? This is Jimmy, who's calling?" "Hey, Jimmy, it's me, Lois." "Lois? Wow, you sound horrible. What are you using, a 14.4 modem?" Lois looked for a modem, but couldn't find one. Must be an internal model. "I have no idea, I'm in Smallville, Kansas, remember?" A low whistle came back as the response. "Wow. Works from way out there - amazing..." "Jimmy, I need you to do some research for me." "Shoot." "Okay, all I have is a series of names. Take them, combine them, do what ever magic on them and see if you come up with anything." "All right, what are the names?" "Grant. Hall. Nicole. Joshua. Craig. There was one more... oh yes, Mark. I'm looking for a man or a woman. Lived in Metropolis around six or seven years ago or so. I need to know who they are, what they did, and where they are at now." "Geeze, you don't want much, do you. Want me to tell you their hair color as well?" "Ha ha. The static on this thing is just horrible. Why would anyone want to use this in the first place?" "Hey - it's the mark of the future, Lois. Get with it. I'm amazed it works at all from Kansas." "Well, honestly, I am too. Don't let Clark hear you say that though." The response was mostly garbled and broken. Lois hung up and sent some more email with detail of what she had learned from the people in Smallville. At the end she put the Kent's phone number, and fax number for good measure. About that time, Clark came stumbling downstairs and into the kitchen. Lois logged off and followed him in. He had his back to her, and that waistband called her name again, so she slid up behind him and grabbed the waistband and pulled it back a good six inches, intending to let it fly. The sight of his bare back-side halted her in her tracks. Clark had a suntan! "Clark! You have a tan line!" "Huh?" He didn't sound as if he was fully awake yet. "I said you have a tan line." Lois tipped his head forward and saw a faint tan line around his neck as well. His forearms were a bit darker than the rest of his body also. "Have you ever had a tan before?" More awake now, Clark said, "No. Well, when I was a kid. But not since then. The sun quit affecting me that way years ago." He spun around and around as he tried to pull the waistband back on himself and turn enough to see what it looked like back there. "What's going on Clark," Lois had a bad feeling about this. "Calm down, Lois. It's just a tan line." They heard a vehicle pull in the drive and Martha and Jonathan came in shortly after that. "Hi kids! Finally decide to join the living?" Martha asked. "Have you ever seen him tan since he started ..." Lois gave the flying hand signal. "No..." Martha suddenly got serious, as she walked over to inspect Clark for herself. "Come on guys, this is embarrassing. I don't need my Mother looking at my rear-end..." Clark suddenly got real still. "Clark, this isn't normal, and we..." "Shh..." Clark closed his eyes and let his senses extend. "Something isn't right." "I *know* that - you've got a tan that you didn't have a day ago." "No, not that. Something else. It's like that feeling I had the other night, with the Iraqi thing." He went into the living room and turned on the television. Several reporters were jamming microphones in some man's face, trying to get their statements. The caption at the bottom of the screen read "Viktor Blagov, Deputy Flight Commander" next to the little LNN symbol. "All we know now is that there has been an incident on the Mir space station," the man explained. "We do not know the nature of the problem. Communications are not working. The last message we received, which was very, *very* garbled, made mention of the emergency re-entry module. We do not know if the problem is with the module or Mir itself." "I've got to go. They need help." He spun into the Suit. Jonathan spoke up. "Clark, be careful out there. Remember how badly the last space station taxed your abilities." Clark looked at Lois, as if asking permission. "Oh Clark, I don't know. I... I don't feel like I can say no, don't go, and yet I don't want you to go." Clark wrapped her in a hug. "I promise, I'll stop by STAR Labs on the way back to find out about the tan, and that other - thing. Okay?" She nodded and he was gone. *** Lois, Martha and Jonathan spent the next few hours taking turns watching LNN for updates on Clark and the space station. Superman had arrived just in time to prevent the aging space station from drifting so far off course that the earth's gravity well would have claimed it. There were the usual computer hardware problems, and leaky fluid claims made by the Russian Space Agency. Superman was reported to be assisting the space station inhabitants with "mechanical repairs" on the exterior of the Mir, but these reports were difficult to verify. As the day wore on, it became apparent that Clark wouldn't be returning soon. One thing led to another, and Superman was kept busy all day, helping the world move on. *** Twelve hours later, a very tired Superman stumbled into Dr. Klein's lab at STAR Labs. "Superman! Clar... er... What... err... you look horrible." Dr. Klein rushed over to Clark, and pulled out a chair for the Man of Steel to collapse in. "I feel horrible. I've got no energy left. I can barely fly. I can't lift much anymore, and I can't see as well as I used to. On top of all that," Clark pulled down around the collar of the Suit to expose his chest a bit more, "I'm getting a sun tan." *** Clark was stripped to his underwear, laying on a table with lots of little wires sticky taped to his body. He had called Lois to let her know where he was, and that he might be a while. How much time had actually passed, he wasn't sure. After he had filled Dr. Klein in on his involvement in the Iraqi chemical weapons testing mishap, Dr. Klein had immediately started testing. Computers hummed and monitors flickered with information on all sides. Dr. Klein removed some paper from the laser printer and walked over to Clark and handed him a terry cloth robe. "Here, put this on, I think we found something." Clark put the robe on thankfully, he was actually starting to feel cold. "What did you find?" "Your entire skin has been coated with some kind of chemical substance that has the most amazing properties. It behaves like a liquid crystal." "A liquid crystal?" "Yes, liquid crystals are composed of moderately sized organic molecules which tend to be elongated and shaped like a cigar. The literature is full of a variety of other, highly exotic shapes as well. Because of their elongated shape, under appropriate conditions the molecules can exhibit orientational order, where all the axes line up in a particular direction. As a result, this ordering can profoundly influence the way light and electricity behave in the material. For example, if the direction of the orientation of these molecules varies in space, the polarization of the light follows this variation. They are commonly used in liquid crystal displays. Under other conditions the molecules may form a stack of layers along any one direction, but remain liquid like within the individual layers..." "Whoa! Dr. Klein, in English, please." "Sorry. Basically, this material is orientating itself such that it is diverting the sun's energy away from your skin. It is using your aura and the sun itself as its energy sources. You don't have a sun tan, that's the substance itself. As it is exposed to more sun light, it strengthens, and thickens in those areas. The result is that the very thing that gives you your super powers is also powering something that keeps you from getting what you need." "So, how do we stop it?" "I don't know. But! I do have some theories. In the meantime, try to stay out of direct sunlight, and don't over-do it. I suspect you may be running on some kind of internal reserve. Flying is definitely out. It seems to be the largest consumer of your energy." "How am I going to get home?" "Take the bus? Or a cab? I'd take you home myself if I had the time, but I'm going to start right away on this..." "No, no. Home as in," he dropped his voice to a whisper, "Smallville, Kansas." "Oh! Oh... Oh..." He put his chin in his hand. After thinking for a bit he said, "Try walking, very fast." "Walking?" **** Jimmy was extremely pleased with himself. Not only was he a supreme computer god, but he was beginning to turn into a pretty good investigative reporter. He was so happy, he called Lois in Kansas. "Hello, Kent Residence," he recognized Lois' voice on the phone. "Lois, it's Jimmy!" "Jimmy! What can I do for you?" "I've found out who your mystery people are, and boy are you going to be surprised." Lois was shocked. He'd found out already? Wow. "Well, who are they?" "It took some brilliant hacking by yours truly, and some darn fine investigation work, I might add." "Okay, great, you're a genius -- now who are they?" "Well, I started by running all the combinations of the names you gave me. Then I cross-referenced those with some of the other stuff. You know, the modeling, handy with his hands, junk like that. Man - I had to write this really cool data base engine in Python to..." "I don't care about snakes or the Information Technology mumbo-jumbo, just give me the names." Jimmy was a sweetheart, but a bit too enthusiastic about himself sometimes. "Okay. The woman is Nicole Craig, the rising super-model from several years back. You once covered a puff story about her about seven years ago or so..." "Oh my gosh, you're right! I remember her now..." "Yeah. Seems she got pregnant and dropped out of circulation. Her boyfriend wasn't the kind of guy anyone liked though. Everyone thought she could do better. Seems he was a real loser or something. I did some checking around with some of her old friends at the modeling agencies. Man, talk about heaven! Interviewing them was good. But to think someone has a job where they get to take pictures of them all day! And they get paid to do it! Wow. Now that's heaven." "Jimmy, control your hormones just a little longer. What did you find out?" "Well, someone said they thought his name was John. Someone else said no, it was Marcus. I asked if it was Mark, and the answer was no, it was definitely Marcus. Now, there *is* a Marcus Hallman, who just happens to be a big time crime syndicate hitman by the name of Marksman. Marcus 'Marksman' Hallman was one of the top eliminators in the business." "Whoah!" "And, he disappeared a little over six years ago, after he turned himself in, and turned state's evidence that put half of the Metropolis underground behind bars." "Man oh man. I *knew* there was something here..." "I figured, hey, he's in the witness protection program, right? So I hacked into their computer..." "Uh, Jimmy, was that wise? I mean, isn't that a little - illegal?" "Well, maybe. However, I managed to get in and get his and her mug shots. Couldn't find out any other information on them. It was too secure, and I didn't want to raise any flags." Jimmy dialed the Kent's fax number into the machine and loaded the pictures. "I'm faxing them to you now." The machine on Lois' end answered the incoming call and started producing the pictures. "Jimmy, you're great. We'll have to work on that little bit of illegal business, but when Perry hears about this, it will likely get you out of the dark room and out where the action is." Lois was grinning ear-to-ear as the first picture finished transferring and she could see Nicole Hall on the page. "Wonder why they would want to hustle the farm away from Clark's parents?" she wondered out loud. "What was that about a farm?" Jimmy asked. "Oh, nothing. The second picture is almost in, thanks." *** "Oh oh." Jimmy watched as two suits and dark sunglasses came off the elevator, and started walking rapidly towards Perry's office. "I've got to go Lois, bye." He grabbed the pictures out of the fax machine and walked slowly over to the paper shredder. He fed the pages in as normally as possible, not wanting to attract attention to himself. The two men heard the paper shredder activate, and their attention was immediately drawn to Jimmy. "Hey! You there!" Jimmy jumped and turned around. "Who, me?" "What are you doing?" "Oh nothing..." The men came over and started digging through the box of shredded paper, looking for something. Not finding anything, they grabbed Jimmy and forced him into a chair. "What were you doing?" "What do you do here?" "Have you ever been in trouble with the law before?" "Have you ever seen this man before?" one of the men held up a picture of Marcus Hallman. "What in Sam Hill's going on here? Jimmy, don't you answer any of those questions till the lawyers get here," Perry gruffly shoved his way between Jimmy and the men. "Mr. White, we're with the FBI. If we wish to question this young man, we will do so." "What exactly is this all about?" Perry asked. "Let me see some ID." The two men exchanged glances. They pulled out their wallets and flashed the ID quickly. "My name is Det. James Reilly. Someone from this facility accessed a secured government computer and transferred potentially Top Secret information. We are here to determine the perpetrator, and take them in for further investigation." Perry started to say, "Now, I'm sure no one here would..." One of the men cut Perry off, and asked Jimmy, "You, did you hack into the government computer?" As innocent as a newborn, Jimmy replied, "Hey, if I was *that* good with a computer, do you think I would be stuck in *this* crummy job?" He glanced over to see Perry giving him a none-too-pleased look. "Uh, sorry Chief." Det. Reilly, the one who looked to be in charge, casually walked around the office. He spotted the fax machine. There were no printouts in the tray. He reached over and hit the redial button and the machine called the Kents' again, the phone number showing up on the display. "Well, well, well. Let's see who this belongs to," James said. Jimmy slumped back in his chair. "Oh, boy." *** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:38:50 -0800 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Leanne Shawler (by way of Leanne Shawler)" Subject: S5: Episode 11 (part 5 of 7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Det. James Reilly was sweating. He'd been on the inside for six years, waiting for this information. Now he was going to report the news to the appropriate people, and maybe he could get out and go south. He needed to get out of the business. As he parked his car, a shadow fell over him from outside the driver's side door. He looked up into a set of eyes that gave definition to the word 'evil'. "Stick! Wha... what are you doing here?" "I've heard you may have information on the location of the Marksman." "Well... what makes you think that?" He could feel the little bead of sweat form on his upper lip. Damn! His fear was starting to control him. Richard 'Stick' Stull was a man who thrived on fear. He invented it. His reputation was large and well deserved. He, too, was one of the premier eliminators in the business. His problem was he enjoyed it too much. He wouldn't simply do the hit. He would capture his victims, spend hours or days torturing them, then kill them slowly. His love for the business was what got him in trouble. Clients no longer wanted to be associated with him. Some things are too bad for even the criminals to take. He and the Marksman had a long, outstanding feud over territory. The syndicates' dismissal of him drove him crazy with hate for the Marksman. "Listen. You tell me what you know, then I'll tell the syndicate. I'll pay you the usual fee. We both get what we want." "I... I don't know. I think I should tell them myself." "You can tell me now," he paused and twirled a walking stick between his fingers, "...or later. Much later." The walking stick came to a halt, firmly grasped in his hand. *** Lois, Martha and Jonathan were all pacing the floor of the farm house living room. Jonathan paused to look out the window. "When did he say he was leaving STAR Labs?" he asked no one in particular. "Seven o'clock, a.m. He wanted to rest up after the tests Dr. Klein did on him." Martha stopped pacing. "I wish he would have told us what they found out..." Jonathan could see a small cloud of dust rising down the road, "Here comes someone - are we expecting anyone today?" "No..." Martha went to look out the window. A blue and red streak came blitzing down the road, turned into the drive and into the barn. By the time they had all exited the house, Clark came out, still buttoning his shirt, breathing heavily. They all hugged him, and Lois asked, "What's wrong, Clark?" "Come... come inside..." he said between breaths, "...and I'll... I'll tell you about it." He explained as best he could about the liquid crystal coating, and how it was keeping the sun from getting to his body to power his abilities. He ate a large breakfast while he relayed the information. He'd never felt so hungry! "So, slowly, you're using up your reserves and becoming more and more..." Lois trailed off. Clark said flatly, "Normal." Lois blushed. "Oh, Clark, I didn't mean it like that. Don't sound so down. I'm sure Dr. Klein will find something to reverse this." "In the meantime, be careful. We don't want you hurting yourself around here, trying to do things you can't." Martha was always the mother. "Tonight is Joshua's Christmas play, and we are all going to watch, so let's all relax and have some fun till then." Lois squirmed visibly in her chair. Jonathan asked, "Lois, something wrong?" "Ah... oh, no. Nothing, it's nothing. Just some story I was working on. I got some information that I need to talk to Clark about." She stood up, and motioned for Clark to follow her into the other room. "Come on, honey, I *really* need to talk to you." Once out of earshot of Martha and Jonathan, she told Clark of Jimmy's findings about the Halls. "I can't believe you interrogated a six-year-old, Lois!" "I didn't interrogate him... I... passively interviewed him," Lois said defensively. "Just like everyone in town, hmmmm?" "Can I help it if they like to talk?" "I can't believe you even felt the need to investigate them in the first place." "Well, I had this feeling, and you know how my feelings are." Her look dared Clark to open his mouth and make a comment. At his silence, she continued. "It's a good thing too. Who knows what scam he may be trying to run here?" "Lois, he sounds like he gave up crime long ago..." "Oh, yeah, sure. Mr. Always-see-the-good-in-a-person." She threw her hands in the air. "Look, someone needs to tell your parents about this," she poked the mug shots in her hand with her finger, "and this," she poked her stomach, "soon, or I'm going to explode." "Okay, calm down. We'll tell them tonight, after the play, about the," he rolled his hands around an imaginary bulge around his middle, "and then we hit them with the other... thing, and let them decide. Okay?" "Okay." *** Martha led the group down front, and seated them in the pew behind the Halls. "Grant! I'd like you to meet my son and his wife. Clark, this is Grant Hall." The two men shook hands. Clark noticed he did indeed have large, strong hands. The man was very physically fit, and he moved like a trained athlete. "And this is his wife, Lois Lane." Lois looked him straight in the eye, piercing him with an "I know who you are" look. He didn't miss it, and it caused him to nearly fall down with fear. Everything they had so patiently built was in danger of being destroyed. He was tired of the running. Tired of moving. Tired of the hunt. He just wanted a place he and his family could call home. They had found that in Smallville. Now, fate had thrown them into a relationship with Lois Lane. God help them survive. If she knew, who else knew? The Kents appeared to act normally. If they knew who he was, surely they couldn't act so oblivious. He looked at Clark again. Clark was looking on with a casual air, but he knew. Grant could see that Clark knew and was studying him for more information. "Uh... Mr... uh... Clark, this is my wife, Nicole." Continuing introductions helped him think. He looked at Nicole, and realized she knew something was wrong. She looked at Lois and Clark, and he could see the fear widen her eyes just a little. Almost imperceptible, but he knew her well enough to see it. The music started, and the lights came down. Everyone took their seats, and began shushing each other to attentiveness. At the back of the church, a man walked in just as the doors were closed. He took a seat at the very back of the church, next to the aisle, and leaned his walking stick against the pew next to him. *** "Oh, that was wonderful Joshua; you and your parents must come over for some hot cocoa," Martha said. "Yeah!!!" "Oh, no dear, we need to be going home. Santa's coming and you've got to get to bed." Grant rushed to get his coat on. The last thing they needed was to be in the same house as Lois and Clark. "Yes, we need to get home," Nicole agreed. "Awwww, mom..." Jonathan joined in. "Nonsense, our house is on your way home. It's only nine o'clock, you have plenty of time to have something. I think there are some cut-out cookies as well." "No, really..." Grant was stopped by a firm grip on his shoulder. Clark looked him in the eyes. "Grant, it's okay. Come over and have something to drink. I promise." The total sincerity in his voice was overwhelming. He looked at Lois and could see a marked difference. Her eyes almost said: "You're getting your chance, take it." Nicole saw the looks and gave a tiny nod of approval. She'd learned long ago to trust Grant's intuition. "Okay. We'll meet you there." *** Martha was cleaning up the dishes and mugs, as Clark got up from the table. "Hey Joshua, let's go turn on the television and see if the news has anything about Santa on." "Yeah!!!" Joshua jumped up from the table and led Clark into the other room. Grant looked at Lois, and then at Nicole. "Martha, Jonathan. I have something to tell you about myself and Nicole." He took a deep breath and continued. "I only pray you have it in you to listen to the whole story before judging me." He relayed the whole, complete story of who he was, what he had done and why he was here now. "I've put my complete trust in your hands, now. If anyone finds out that we live here now - our lives are ruined." He looked at Lois. "Who else knows besides you?" Lois said, "Just Clark, myself and Jimmy." "Jimmy?" "He's the one who put all the pieces together, and hacked into the computer to find out who you are." Nicole dropped her head in her hands. "Oh no. It's over now." Grant put his arm around her, and pulled her close. Jonathan had to ask. "What changed you, Grant?" "I was starting to get sick of the whole thing. Another man, Stick, enjoyed his work too much. We never really got along well, but he just got worse and worse. I began to see that what we were doing was wrong." He gave Nicole another squeeze. "I wandered around the city for a while, and ended up at a church. I heard this lovely voice coming from inside and just had to see who it belonged to." "He came in and it was love at first sight," she smiled. "I told her about myself on the first date. I wanted to be completely open and honest with her. I wanted to know right up front if we had a future together." "Imagine how I felt," Nicole continued. "Here is the man of my dreams. *The* one, I was sure. Only he's got a dark secret, he's a cold blooded killer." Grant looked down, turning red with shame. Nicole squeezed his hand reassuringly. "The first thing I had him do was start coming to church with me." Nicole sat back and rubbed her stomach absent-mindedly. "Once we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, we made the decision to marry." "A few weeks later, I dedicated my life to Jesus Christ, and we had a private wedding ceremony the same day. We kept the marriage a secret. As a way to repent, we had agreed that I would turn myself in to the law." Grant shuffled in his chair. "I turned state's evidence on most of Metropolis' criminal underground. I knew they would be after me, and I didn't want them coming after Nicole." Martha asked, "How many people did you put away?" "Plenty. The big fish got away though." "Who was that?" Lois asked. Grant looked her in the eye. "Lex Luthor. Everyone knew he was one of the top men. I never got a direct order from him though. The DA thought it was laughable that a man of Luthor's standing would be involved. Especially since I had no hard evidence. Naturally, the people I got my orders from wouldn't talk. So, Luthor walked." "I knew it! Even if this Lex isn't the Lex that did all those things to Clark and me, I knew he wasn't Mister Angel. The problem is, I still don't have any proof." Grant continued. "After I got out of jail, the witness protection program stepped in and found us a place to live. Jobs, money, everything. We thought we had it made. I wanted to get away from big city life as much as possible. It reminded me too much of who I used to be and what I had done. We moved to rural America and I went to work as a field hand." "Only someone kept finding us. We moved from place to place. Finally, we just took out on our own, and came here. We told the agency what we were doing, but not where we were going," Nicole said. "The problem is," Grant said, standing up, "if you could find us, someone else will too." "Maybe not." Lois stood up as well. "Jimmy is a pretty good hacker. Maybe no one noticed he was in the system?" "I hope so. We just knew we had found our home," Nicole said. Lois gave Nicole a hug. "I'm sorry. I feel awful. I get an idea in my head, and I run it down. I don't know what I'll do if I'm the cause of you losing your home again." They all sat there in silence, no one knowing what to say. "What about the farm?" Lois suddenly asked. "The farm?" Grant looked puzzled. "Yes, the Kent farm? Why did you talk them into retiring? What do you want the farm for?" "To farm," he said as if the answer was as plain as the nose on his face. "That's it!!??" "What else is there?" *** Grant and Nicole had just laid down for bed. Getting Joshua to settle down long enough to go to sleep had been a chore. He was so excited about Santa, he had been running around, bouncing off the walls, literally. They were just drifting off, when the phone rang. Grant leaned over and picked it up. "Hello?" "Hello, Marksman." Adrenalin pumped through his veins as he realized who was on the other end. "Stick!" he spit, with all the hate and contempt he felt. "So good to hear you, too. Listen, and listen well. I have the Kents. I thought I might find you here, but all I found was your friends. It took some... persuading... to get this number. It wasn't nice to have an unlisted one." The fear turned to hate. "If you've hurt them, I'll..." "Save me the dramatic speech. You and I have a score to settle. Come to the Kent farm, and enter the barn from the west door. Bring no weapons. Contact no one. The Kents will be safe as long as you follow my instructions. Be there at dawn." The line went dead. "Grant, what is it?" Nicole touched him and could feel him trembling all over. "We've been found." "Oh, no." "Stick has the Kents," he jumped out of bed and turned to her. "You and Joshua need to get out of here now." He reached under the bed and pulled out the suitcases. He crossed the room to the dresser and opened the drawers. "I'm not going anywhere, Grant. We're staying with you!" He turned on her. "You don't understand! He's evil. He would love nothing more than to kill you both, while I watched, just to get a kick out of it. You *have* to save Joshua and the baby." "Grant, I just can't leave you. You have to come with us." He sat down on the bed. "He's got the Kents. If I don't show up, he'll kill them. I can't have that blood on my hands. Not now, I'm dirty enough as it is." "Grant..." He stood up and continued packing. "I've got to free them somehow before Stick and I clash. It's their only chance. They'll be lucky if he doesn't kill them before, just for the heck of it." He stopped and looked at his wife. "I love you. I'm going to finish this, here and now. I'm tired of running. One way or another, it ends here." Nicole finally agreed to leave with Joshua. She got him ready, and Grant got the car. He burned into his memory their last kiss, the way she looked, smelt, felt. He wanted to remember every detail of this moment, so it would give him the strength to finish this last battle. As the tail lights disappeared down the road, he slipped the black mask down over his face, and set off toward the Kent farm. He had to free them before dawn. **** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:38:57 -0800 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Leanne Shawler (by way of Leanne Shawler)" Subject: S5: Episode 11 (part 6 of 7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lois woke up, but couldn't remember where she was. She had a dull ache at the base of her skull that made it hard to think. She tried to sit up, only to realize she already was sitting. She tried to rub her hands, but couldn't move her arms. She could hear voices, and they sounded familiar. "I think Lois is starting to come to, Jonathan." "Lois! Lois, this is Jonathan, can you hear me?" She tried to talk, but her tongue felt a mile thick. "Yeah, I can hear you. What happened? Where is Clark?" She tried to look around for him. 'Where to start!' Martha thought. "Lois, listen. We're being held in the barn. That man tied us all up. Clark still hasn't come to yet." Lois was freezing. She could feel her body shivering, and wondered if it was from cold, fear, or both. "I'm cold," she mumbled. Jonathan answered her, trying to sound assuring. "It's probably only in the high twenties outside this time of night. The wind is making it feel colder. Luckily, the barn is a bit warmer. The animals help, but I would guess it's still only around fifty degrees or so." Lois shook her head groggily, and looked around. They had been tied up in the middle of the barn, and dim light filtered in from the outside. Martha called to Clark, bringing Lois further back to herself. "Clark! Clark, honey, can you hear me?" Things were starting to come back to Lois now, and she gradually pieced together what she remembered of what had happened... *** They had been getting ready for bed when Clark heard something downstairs. "Honey, you'd best stay here." "Don't be silly, Clark-- this is Smallville, what could it be?" Clark sighed, and started downstairs to investigate, with Lois hot on his heels. Without his superhearing, he hardly recognized the sounds of scuffling, until he burst in on a strange man wrestling with Jonathan in the kitchen. The man had a gun, but Jonathan had such a grip on the man's wrist and hand that he wasn't able to use it effectively. Jonathan might have looked out of shape, but one didn't work the land for more than fifty years and not benefit from it in some way. Lois noticed Martha laying nearby. She was not moving, and the sight sent a chill down Lois' spine. Jonathan's hands were big and strong, and he used his weight advantage to keep the man off balance. The other man was a bit surprised by his strength, and was having trouble recovering. Clark rushed in to give his assistance; he may not have had much Super ability left, but seeing his parents in danger forced him into action. When the other man saw Clark advancing on them, he deftly twisted under Jonathan and sent him sprawling towards Clark. Clark couldn't just let Jonathan fall, and caught him before he hit the floor. Unfortunately, the man took that opportunity to connect the walking stick he carried with the base of Jonathan's skull. He slumped to the floor in Clark's arms, a sight that enraged Lois as she saw the shock and pain on her husband's face. The man smiled. He was enjoying this! She launched herself at him, not thinking of the gun, which the man had strangely thrown aside. 'Look before you leap...' went through her head briefly as she landed one good kick before the man gracefully countered her motion, sending her slamming into the kitchen wall. Dazed, all she could see was Clark, his face a contorted mask of rage as he set his father down on the floor. Hate burned in his eyes so brightly she could almost imagine it was heat vision...almost. "Clar..." she stammered as she felt the stick strike the back of her head, seeing Clark's look change from rage to horror as she fell. The last thing she saw was Clark throwing himself at the man; then, all went dark. *** She looked around again, and could see from the dim light that Jonathan had blood running down the side of his head. His left eye was swollen and his lip was cut. Martha was also sporting a black eye. They were all tied in the sitting position to chairs, spaced equally apart, facing one another. She looked to her left to find Clark, and gasped at what she saw. He looked like he had been beaten to a pulp. B